The Wall Street Journal: U.S. men’s national soccer team demands women get a pay raise

Team USA’s Alex Morgan, No. 13, celebrates a goal during the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France last June.

The U.S. men’s soccer team players association, in the midst of negotiations with the U.S. Soccer Federation over a new collective-bargaining agreement, on Wednesday called on the federation to pay the U.S. women’s team “significantly more” than the men were paid under their recently expired deal.

The men’s players association’s position, outlined in a nearly 1,900-word news release, appears to have been prompted by what it says is the federation’s current negotiating position: that the U.S. men’s team’s compensation should stay at the level it was during its 2011-2018 agreement.

“This is not because there is any basis for that position,” the men’s statement says. “Instead, it’s a desperate attempt to coverup the fact that what they did to the women in 2017 is indefensible.” The U.S. women signed their current labor deal in 2017. It runs through 2021.

The U.S. women’s team is suing the federation for pay discrimination, a charge the federation has denied, in a class-action case scheduled to go to trial May 5. The nearly year-old case has prompted many comparisons between the U.S. women’s and men’s pay.

The U.S. women have won the past two World Cups and recently qualified for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The U.S. men failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.